


The Crucible of Bucky Barnes

by neverthelessthesun



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aggression, Angst, Bad Translation, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Complete, Heavy Angst, I'm so sorry, Self-Destruction, Stucky Big Bang 2016, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers, author is sorry, author only speaks english, death mention, i need to reread this and tag more, if you trigger easily maybe don't read, like heartbreaking, will tag more later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:46:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverthelessthesun/pseuds/neverthelessthesun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was started for the Stucky Big Bang put on by thestuckylibrary. Huge thanks to those folks. </p><p>.o0o.</p><p>When the Soldier woke up, he was in the Red Room.<br/>When the Soldier woke up, he was reprogrammed.<br/>When the Soldier woke up, he was in pain.<br/>When Bucky woke up...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS STORY IS NOT TRIGGER-FREE. This is not a safe read. Read at your own risk.
> 
> I honestly haven't finished this, so I will add more to it as I get to it.
> 
> This story is only in existence because of the wonderful folks over at thestuckylibrary on tumblr. I love each and every one of them. I am sorry my friends, I have failed to meet word count on time.

.o0o.

“Sie nennen ihn die Faust des HYDRA. Er ist nicht mehr aufzuhalten.” (They call him the Fist of HYDRA. He is unstoppable.)

The Soldier does not think anything. He observes and does not react. 

“Er sieht aus wie ein fauler Hund zu mir. Der Arm ist die beste Technik, aber der Soldat? Wie stellen Sie ihn bewegen?” (He looks like a lazy dog to me. The arm is the best engineering, but the soldier? How do you make him move?”)

“Er hat Schlüsselwörter. Eine grobe Plan für jetzt, aber später wird er komplexe Aufträge folgen, auch vielleicht in der Lage sein, Parameter zu extrapolieren , die auf den gegenwärtigen Mission.” (He has keywords. A rough blueprint for now, but later he will follow complex orders, even perhaps be able to extrapolate based on current mission parameters.)

“Ich nehme an, Sie haben ein Beispiel.” (I assume you have an example.)

“Na sicher. Soldat, folgen.” (Of course. Soldier, Follow.) 

The Soldier stands smoothly and falls into step behind Handler. He walks exactly seven steps, then stops a pace and a half behind when Handler pauses. He does not know why he felt the compulsion to move, only that it does not hurt when he follows the compulsion, so he does. He always followed the compulsion, even before he learned what the words meant. 

“Sie haben sich gezüchtet eine sehr teure Hund, Doktor. Ich hoffe, Sie haben etwas anderes, mir zu zeigen, wie gut neben Leine ausgebildete er ist.” (You've bred yourself a very expensive dog, Doctor. I hope you have something else to show me besides how well leash-trained he is.) 

“Na sicher.” (Of course.) Handler’s voice sounded different. The pitch was higher. His voice shook. He raised a hand and the technicians brought over the Ziel…a man with a black burlap bag over his face. He was sobbing softly but Handler ignored him, the man in the suit ignored him. The Soldier wondered if he had been compelled to stick a knife in his thigh, like the Soldier sometimes dreams he did once. He thinks it’s just a dream, not a memory, but that is irrelevant. All that matters is the compulsion. All that matters is Handler. 

“Soldat, Ihr Ziel. Töten.” (Soldier, your objective. Kill.)

The man with the burlap sack is secondary objective. The mission is the man in the grey suit. He is the mission that was programmed. But Handler gestures to the Ziel being held by the technicians, so Soldier moves to him and snaps his neck efficiently. The soft sobbing stops. The compulsion is appeased. 

“Beeindruckend.” (Impressive.)  
“Soldat, Ihre Mission. Töten.” (Soldier, your mission. Kill.)

The Soldier turned swiftly and snapped the neck of the man in the suit before he could make noise. Noise was inefficient and messy. Noise was not allowed. The Soldier did well. 

The technicians dragged the two bodies away. Handler did not look at him. But he said, in English, “I think the soldier is ready.” Handler only spoke English when he was pleased. The compulsion was appeased. 

.o0o.

When the Soldier woke up, he was in the Red Room. The technicians spoke Russian, and he picked up the language in bits and pieces over the course of the afternoon. He did not remember Handler’s face, or the taste of food, but somehow he knew food existed, even though he could not remember how he knew. He wanted some food.

The technician gave him an IV, complaining about “зарубежное прибор” (foreign instrument) and gesturing to his left arm. 

Then the instructors came. A sharp woman with beady eyes and pointy glasses, followed by a thin, watery man whose upper lip seemed permanently curled into a sneer. The last man to enter was slightly bulkier and shorter, and carried a gun in the back of his suit pants, and looked at the Soldier hardly at all. 

The woman pointed at his IV and told the technician to take it away. She then turned to the watery man expectantly. The man jumped forward and began scanning the Soldier with some sort of device that beeped every twenty seconds. The beeping was familiar, somehow. Almost comforting in its consistency.

“кулак,” ('Fist',) The sharp woman announced to the room. “Это то, что они называют его. Немцы называли его солдат.” (This is what they call him. The Germans called him a soldier.)

“Там нет места для глупых названий здесь. Это инструмент, пока он не докажет себя актив.” (There's no room for stupid titles here. It is a tool, until it proves itself an asset.) The man with the gun sneered. 

The woman nodded her head once, conceding. The watery man finished his examination with the beeping tool and, without notice, thrust his fingers into the Solider’s (tool’s?) mouth. Ten seconds later the man was on the floor, cradling a broken femur, and the tool’s mouth tasted of blood. 

“Дурак!” (Fool!) The sharp woman screeched. “Это неподготовленный!” (It is untrained!) 

The tool sat still and did not look at the other three. It was not clear which of them was his handler, and so he could not report. He could not decide which one he would follow in the event of a fight. He could not think, he wasn’t tethered…

“Как скоро мы можем получить его в комнату?” (How soon can we get it in the Room?) Asked the man. He seemed to defer to the woman’s expertise. Perhaps he was her boss? Did that make her his handler?

“Его подготовка начнется сразу же.” (Its preparation will start immediately.) the woman advised. She was speaking to the man with the gun, but her gaze was trained on the watery man on the floor. He sensed her looking, and got up to continue his work—this time keeping his hands to himself. “Он будет готов в течение четырех дней.” (It will be ready in four days.) 

The stout man considered this, then nodded. “Не забудьте сохранить эту страсть жива.” (Be sure to keep this passion alive.) He intoned. The watery man winced as he put weight on his broken leg. 

“Да, руководитель,” (Yes, Leader,) The woman barked. The stout man left the room. 

The tool did not know how he saw it coming, but he did. When the woman pulled a knife from her leg to stab the watery man in the side, the tool already knew where it was going to hit, and how deep. It felt like he had seconds, maybe even a minute to react, but in reality it was las than a second. 

He did nothing, because the woman was his handler, likely as not, and Handler always did what was right. 

“Перейдите на коврик, чтобы умереть.” (Go to your mat to die.) she directed coldly. 

The watery man knew the rules about noise, because he did not make a sound. He simply picked up his beeping machine, set it on the counter, and dragged his broken leg out of the room. 

Now that it was just the tool and the sharp woman, she finally turned her beady, black eyes to meet his gaze. She slapped him. “Глаза вниз.” (Eyes down.) The tool added this to his list of rules. 

In the course of the next hour, he had added a dozen more such rules and guidelines. Some were very specific (Do not stand with your left foot forward) and others were complicated (In the case a technician touches your arm in these specific locations, alert me immediately) and still others were mundane and simple (Protect the person in this photo above your missions). By the end of it he was so constrained by the rules that every move he made had to be calculated and thought through. From his posture to his manners to the way he wore the hospital scrubs he had been given, there were rules for everything. 

He had a feeling that the Room, whatever that was, would be worse.

.o0o.

Two days later, the woman (Галина Маркова, or Galina Markova) led him into an office with the stout man’s picture on the wall. The stout man himself was sitting behind a polished wood desk. It was the fanciest piece of furniture that the tool had seen, aside from the medical chair he woke up in. 

“Вы рано.” (You are early.) He stated. 

“Идиотской немцы использовали его как собаку. Он умнее - умнее, даже, чем некоторые из наших агентов.” (The stupid Germans used it as a dog. It’s smarter - smarter even than some of our agents.)

“Вы уверены, что они не признают весь потенциал этого, когда они торговали это?” (Are you sure that they do not recognize the full potential of it, when they sold it?) 

“Примечания являются явными.” (The notes are explicit.) Markova sneered. She clearly did not think much of the notes in his file. 

The stout man leaned back in his chair, pleased. The tool was getting better at reading the facial expressions of the people here, all of whom tried so hard to be expressionless. 

“Мы поместим его с пользой.” (We will put it to good use.) The man allowed. “Она начнется завтра.” (It will begin tomorrow.) 

.o0o.


	2. Chapter 2

The Room certainly hurt more than learning the rules with Markova, but it wasn’t really worse, either. Pain was superfluous. Pain could be borne, ignored. But now the tool’s mind was being worked, as he learned new fighting techniques and weapons. His hand-to-hand improved drastically in a week, and even more so once he started to dance. 

For that was what the Red Room was—a dance studio. It was greying and old and crumbling—a relic of a proud and discredited history. But the mirrors, though discolored, were still hung next to the bar, and the students danced. 

There were seven dancers originally, but two were led out that first week and three were killed in the training. The tool killed one, a small boy who did not have the flexibility in his joints to complete all the training anyway. The tool was paired with him for fighting one day (night?) and told not to go easy. Then he was told to clean the bloodstain from the mats. 

In the end, there were only two dancers left out of the original seven when the training was complete. One was Bucky, and the other was a strong and wiry woman with dull brown hair and a birdlike nose. She saved him a soft smile when Markova wasn’t looking.

Markova pitted them against each other many times, but they were almost completely evenly matched—and far too familiar with each other’s fighting style. Eventually Markova tapped him out and he was led away and frozen in the bleak, dark tube again. 

.o0o.

When he awoke, the birdlike woman was older and wrinkled. “Я убил Маркова,” (I have killed Markova,) she whispered. “Мы должны работать.” (We must run.)

But the tool’s handler, Markova, was not there. In the absence of a handler, the tool simply waited for another with the correct clearance to speak the trigger phrase. And the bird woman, though she pleaded with him, did not know the trigger phrase. 

Eventually she left him there, thawing in the chair, and he heard her get shot a few minutes later. The Red Room did not tolerate rebellion. 

When the new handler came hours later and spoke the trigger phrase, he was expecting to be wiped. Each time before, when he had awoken, there had been electricity in his brain, and a fire…

But they did not wipe him. He smiled.

.o0o.

“Sloppy, Наталия.” The dance instructor growled. “Higher.”

The redheaded girl raised her chin and her pointe higher, and did not cry. She was only seven, but so far had the most promise of all their recruits. 

To teach the children other languages, their instructions were given in English today. They had never heard English before, but the instructor knew from experience that you learned quickly if you valued your life. 

Наталия did not tremble. Her poise was perfect. She wanted to dance, to be grace in human form. 

The others were not meant for it. The instructor could see it in their eyes—they let fear and doubt in. 

He decided to let Handler know of his findings. 

He remembered back when he had been a tool, like the children here, he had not been given a name. They were lucky they got such a luxury, and he was lucky, too—they were hard to distinguish between without them, and indeed Handler just called them “сорванцов” collectively. Still the children complained in whispers of sore feet and muscles, as if pain were the biggest of their fears. They were at least smart enough to never voice aloud their fear for their lives, and their fear of him. 

Even the redheaded child was afraid of him. He stepped closer to her position on the bar and saw her gaze catch on his movement. He slapped her sharply. She did not know what she had done wrong, but she did not complain. 

The others all saw that he was harder on her. They probably thought she was his пустяк, a toy for him to amuse himself with. But she showed promise, and so he pushed her harder. 

“Нажмите их мимо их точки разрыва.” (Press them past their breaking point.) Handler had said. “Если они живут, мы будем обучать их.” (If they live, we will train them.) The instructor would not train them, though. He would go back into the ice. 

One of the children crumbled to the ground. An attendant came and carried the child away. The others did not turn to stare at their fallen comrade, but gazed steadily forward at nothing. 

.o0o.

When the soldier woke again, they did not call him instructor. They called him Джеймс Смирнов (James Smirnov) and they said to him, “Ваш ученик ждет. Научите ее.” (Your pupil is waiting. Teach her.) 

She was Наталия, Natalia, but older now, almost fifteen. She smelled of blood and sweat, and her red hair was pulled away from her face in a sharp bun. 

She already knew how to dance, for he had seen that. She already knew how to fight, how to pretend to be someone else, how to lie and when to tell the truth. So the soldier taught her the only thing left to teach. 

He taught her how to kill. 

She was good at it, almost as good as himself, but she never quite matched him. Not like the bird woman from before, the one who died. 

Still, James found himself attached to her more closely than anyone else he could remember. The leaders of the Room still had not wiped him, and his emotion would leak through his training sometimes, when it was just the two of them. He would make a joke out of the blue, and she would slip seamlessly into a persona, match him wit for wit. It was entertaining, to say the least. It felt almost human on the best days.

But as soon as the stout handler (now graying with age) was near, James would dissolve and the soldier would be all business. It was because of this habit that he went so long without being found out, but eventually, two months into training with Natalia, he was told his mission was complete. He had twelve hours until he would be wiped. 

He let her know, as much as he was able, that he was leaving. She had developed an attachment as well, he saw when he met her eyes, and for a moment she looked so voiceless that he spoke out of turn to fill her silence. 

“நீங்கள் சுருட்டை நீங்கள் முடி கீழே அணிய வேண்டும்.” (You should wear your hair down in curls,) he said in tamil, because none of the attendants knew tamil. She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. She knew they would not see each other again. 

When their session was over, the soldier was led away to the chair, bound, and wiped. He was glad of it, because he had no time to miss her. 

.o0o.


	3. Chapter 3

When the Soldier woke up, he was reprogrammed. Reprogramming hurt—He was sure he had been reprogrammed before but each agony felt like the first time. He remembered nothing, felt only the compulsion in his stomach to do as told. Increasingly the compulsion was pushing him to destroy the enemies of his handler, to fight and break and kill. 

He did not know the difference. Death was all he knew. 

He supposed the pain was a sort of precursor to death, and kept waiting for it to stop so he could get on with dying. But for hours and hours the pain did not stop, and then the pain stretched for days, then he lost track of time for a while until they asked him “Какой это день?” (What day is it?) And burned him until he guessed right. After that he never let his internal clock slip. 

Finally the soldier resigned himself to the pain. For even when they weren’t actively hurting him, he ached in his back and one real shoulder, and his metal arm always hurt, and he felt invincible in the worst way. For, if he had not died yet, what could kill him? 

They must have finished reprogramming him, for they came to him with a bite guard and cuffs. He almost let his relief show, he was so happy to know that he would soon forget all that had happened. But instead of putting him in the chair (how did he know the chair? He knew nothing) they put him on a medical bed and strapped him to it.

.o0o.

For centuries, there was no sound. There was no light or breath or anything but hot, white, inescapable agony. He was defined by it, consumed by it. He did not think for a millennia.

.o0o.

When the Soldier woke up, he could breathe again. It hurt worse than it ever had before. So badly, the soldier cried out from the strength. Someone slapped him across the face and he quieted. He must be stronger than the pain.

He opened his eyes as slowly as he could. They were crusted and dry, as if…(as if he had been crying). In the low light which still burned his sensitive irises, he glanced down to see a new arm at his left side. 

The one he had when he awoke was sticking in odd places and losing its smooth rotation. It had been time for an upgrade, he guessed. This one was not one sheet of metal but covered in intricate rows of overlapping metal, like a salmon. The silver shone dark like a nightmare. 

Just a few moments after he had awoken, an orderly entered his dark room with a needle and called out. “Он просыпается!” (He’s waking!) The soldier closed the sliver of his eyes that was open. Seconds later there were rough hands holding him in place and a pinch in his right arm. He slipped back under gladly. 

.o0o.

Waking hurt. The first time the soldier remembered waking he was in ice, cold and numbing. He felt nothing. But waking without the ice was painful.

Not the sort of pain that came with the reprogramming, of course. Just the sort of low level misery that was not debilitating, but still punishing to a degree that no other consequence had quite rivaled it in his mind. 

But wake he did. This time when he cracked open his eyes he was greeted by his new handler. 

The man was muscled and intimidating with a shock of red hair—although he recognized now, as he scanned the room and himself, that he himself was larger in physical size. But his own posture implied defeat—he was curled in on himself and trying to appear smaller. He straightened. 

The handler spoke. “The Winter Soldier,” He said in a thickly Serbian-accented English. “I hardly believed the stories. but here you are.” 

The Soldier did not respond. He still ached everywhere. His arm felt heavier, and his muscles were screaming complaints. Still, he focused through the pain. He had to be ready in case the intimidating man asked him any questions. 

The man studied the Soldier for a few, tense moments. He seemed to be looking for something—a sign that the Soldier’s training was incomplete? A crack in the emotionless mask which he had perfected? 

Whatever he was looking for, he must not have found it, for he sighed heavily and slapped the Soldier. Per his training, the Soldier did not move. 

“Status report.” The man said. The Soldier had a fleeting moment to wonder why he spoke only in English—what was so special about English?

“Status functional in approximately seven hours. Primary order: Obey Handler. Secondary order: Protect the interests of эта страна as laid out by the Handler. Tertiary order: Protect undisclosed names from danger.”

The third order made the handler’s ears perk up. “Undisclosed names?” he muttered. “Disclose them.”

“Tertiary order: The Winter Soldier will protect certain people above completing his mission. The names of these people are undisclosed to anyone except those on the list.”

The Handler exhaled out his nose sharply. “Add me to the list.”

“Name?”

“Peter Oswald."

“On whose order?”

“What?”

“On whose order is this given?”

“My own! I am your Handler!”

“The order must come from Markova.”

The Handler slapped the Soldier a few more times but he did not change his answer. Finally there was a message from a radio-device that called the Handler away. 

.o0o.

“Galina Markova has been dead for ten years.” Handler grumbled. He threw a manila folder down onto the metal table and gestured that the Soldier should read its contents. 

Markova, Galina. Female. Spy, master dancer, assassin trainer in the Red Room’s early days. Killed by student Дороти палов (Dorothy Polov) on June 21st, 1953.

The Soldier took a moment to orient himself. He did not remember her face, or even her death, but he felt like he already knew she had died. He searched through his saved protocols for a precedent…a dead Handler?

Finally he found a throwaway comment made once by a technician. “If he ever dies, I don’t have to listen to him anymore.” This bit of dialogue floated to him from nowhere, and he had no circumstances or context, but it was all he could work off of. 

“Her orders are void. All undisclosed names given by Markova are no longer protected.”

“Tell me the names that were on the list. The names she gave you.” 

“There are no protected names given by Markova.”

“Damnit!”

The Soldier didn’t know why he could not say the names on the list. He felt no compulsion to protect the names Markova had given him, but something in him would not let him speak the list aloud. He filed the compulsion symptom away and made a note to mention it if someone asked about his functionality. 

He was beaten for insubordination. He did not feel much of it—his nerves were still mostly dead from the cold. 

.o0o.  
Later, on a mission with Oswald, the Soldier went through the list in his mind and tried to pinpoint if there were any names that were still protected. All the names Markova gave him, six in total, were easy for him to say aloud. He tried to remember the other one, the last name on the list, but it had been wiped from him. He could not remember it. 

The likelihood of the Soldier ever coming into contact with the unnamed man from his list was so slim that the Soldier simply continued with his mission. He lined up the shot and waited for the presidential limousine to come into his sights. 

.o0o.

The next time the Soldier woke, they told him that Oswald was dead. Then they wiped him. 

.o0o.


	4. Chapter 4

When the Soldier woke up, his Handler was chatting with an older, greying man. “He can’t keep forming these attachments to people,” Handler was saying. “He’s a liability. That’s why we turned up the juice this go around—we fried all the emotions right out of him.”

The grey man snorted. “I doubt your lab coats down here have managed to do anything productive in the last ten years. Just try not to short out the electricity in all of Russia while doing it.” 

.o0o.

The Soldier was given the date, a luxury he was rarely afforded upon waking. It was September 20th, 1974. Someone made a joke about breaking the moon landing slowly, and the Soldier didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder how the moon landed on earth. 

He was sent out to complete a mission and completed it. He went back into the frigid, black tube. He remembered, as he was falling asleep, that the reason so little made sense anymore was the it had been eleven years since he was last awake. He didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder how he remembered that. 

.o0o.

The next time the Soldier woke, he was in a different lab and a different decade. It was 1980, and boy were the clothes weird. 

“Undersecretary,” a technician shouted urgently. “He’s responding.”

The man’s English was American.

The Undersecretary stepped into his field of view. “Wipe him again just to be sure he’s clean. I don’t want any old orders hanging around in there.”

The Soldier wanted to die rather than be wiped again. He had never been wiped twice in a row like this, he was sure. He opened his mouth and accepted the plastic. He did not cry out until he could not remember why he shouldn’t.

.o0o.

The next time the Soldier woke, he had new protocols. They spoke his trigger phrase from a red-bound leather book. He felt like he had seen it before. He felt like he hated it. 

“You are no longer a Soldier of the Red Room. Remove all orders currently in place.” The Undersecretary ordered. 

The Soldier knew he was supposed to ask, “On whose order?” but he remembered that it didn’t matter anymore. He wiped his protocols. 

“Status.”

The Soldier blinked at the voice. 

“When ordered for your status, give time until functional and all current orders. Status.”

“Time until functional one hour. When ordered for status, Soldier will give time until functional and all current orders.”

The Undersecretary rolled his eyes. “You gotta be specific with this one, don’t you?” He muttered. “Soldier, belay the order. When giving your status, give time until functional and list your current Handler. Your current Handler in Alexander Pierce.”

The Soldier nodded. 

Pierce eyed him critically. “Jameson, teach him how to respond to authority. I’ll be back in an hour.”

.o0o.

An hour later the Soldier’s protocols had been partly rebuilt. He worked for HYDRA now. The Red Room agents had turned him over to SHIELD in exchange for their freedom in America, and HYDRA had taken him from right under SHIELD’s nose. His old Handler was one of them, and he was dead—shot by SHIELD when they thought he had been lying. 

The Soldier had fewer rules, and none about posture or grace, but he kept up some of his old protocols anyway. It made him more sure of his movements if they were planned in advance. 

He killed six men in the next hour, until Pierce finally said, “Don’t send any more live ones in there.” Then the Soldier simply killed paper mannequins. 

When Pierce was happy with the testing, the Soldier was put away in a different frozen tube. This one had clearer glass, and newer fastenings. It was also smaller. The Soldier squashed the bubble of fear that rose as he sank deeper into the cold. 

.o0o.

When the Soldier next woke, it was 1991, and Pierce sent him after a car. He crashed the car and killed the people inside. He took the briefcase from the backseat and brought it back to Pierce. 

Pierce smiled. The Soldier hated it. 

.o0o.

The longer he went between wipes, the more emotion seed back into him. He was wiped after the car mission, so he almost didn’t recognize the compulsion come on him when he was in Odessa. The woman, the one with dark hair protecting his mission—she was on the list. The list of undisclosed names. The one he didn’t remember anything about except that it meant he couldn’t kill her. 

She was covering the mission, and doing it so well, he couldn’t get a clean shot. He knew why HYDRA sent him after this guy—it wasn’t because he was hard to kill, but because she was. But he couldn’t kill her. She was protected. Also, she moved too fast for him to get a clean kill shot. 

Finally he saw an opening. He took it. The mission went down and the woman started bleeding from her hip. He had shot the mission through her.

He wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t certain she would survive the shot. Now it was up to her to live through the night. He packed up and went back to Pierce, who didn’t even notice that the Soldier’s protocols were compromised. 

.o0o.

The next time the Soldier woke, five years later, he wondered if Pierce was using him more often because he was desperate or because he was dying. Either way, HYDRA was more nervous than he had seen them. 

His mission was Captain America. “Your second biggest target in history.” Pierce said. “Maybe even your biggest.” The Soldier could not remember any of his targets. 

“You’ve shaped the century.” Pierce said. The Soldier wished Pierce would stop appealing to his humanity. Wasn’t that something for the lab techs to laugh about. 

Finally the Soldier was set loose on the Captain, and what followed was the most irregular seventy-two hours of the Soldier’s life. 

.o0o.

When the Soldier woke up, he was someone else, too. He was the shadow of a World War Two Soldier, the best friend of a scrawny blond kid from Brooklyn. The shadow was growing stronger. 

The Soldier saw bits and pieces of his own past that were as foreign to him as shadow-Bucky’s, flashes of crosshairs and stern faces and a great, hulking chair with metal instruments attached. He was so confused—was he American, or German, or Russian or Czech—a thousand rules he doesn’t remember learning were governing his movements, his actions, his very thoughts. He couldn’t form sentences—his hands were shaking—

When Bucky resurfaced, he screamed.

.o0o.


End file.
